Court Orders Ethiopian Airlines to Pay NIS 11,500 to Israeli Couple
A Tel Aviv court ordered Ethiopian Airlines to compensate an Israeli couple who discovered during check-in that their flight to Vietnam included a layover in Bangladesh, a country closed to Israelis.
An Israeli couple planning a vacation to Vietnam discovered only during check-in that their flight itinerary included a layover in Dhaka, Bangladesh—a country that does not permit Israeli citizens to enter its territory. Following the discovery, they were forced to cancel their flight and purchase alternative tickets.
The Tel Aviv Court ruled that Ethiopian Airlines breached its disclosure duty and ordered the carrier to pay the passengers approximately NIS 11,500 in compensation and legal expenses.
Unannounced Layover and Conflicting Claims
According to the lawsuit, when purchasing the tickets for their vacation in Vietnam, the passengers were informed that the flight route included only one layover in Addis Ababa. They claimed that they only learned of the additional stop in Bangladesh when checking in. They argued this was a material detail that did not appear in the booking documents and was not brought to their attention beforehand.
Ethiopian Airlines countered that there was no change in the route and that the layover in Bangladesh was present in the reservation system from the beginning. The airline argued that the responsibility lay with the travel agency, which could view the full itinerary details in the system. The company further claimed it had distributed newsletters to its agents in Israel warning them to check entry regulations for destination and transit countries, and that on September 25, 2025, it sent a notification regarding a route issue to the plaintiffs and the travel agency Kishrey Teufa.
Kishrey Teufa maintained that the booking documents received from the airline did not show a layover in Bangladesh, that the airline had not updated them, and that its role was strictly that of an intermediary agent.
Court Ruling and Strict Disclosure Standards
Judge Arieh Biton ruled that the plaintiffs did not know, nor should they have known, about the stop in Bangladesh. The judgment noted that the flight tickets and booking documents presented a route from Tel Aviv to Addis Ababa and from there to Hanoi, with no mention of Bangladesh. The judge also ruled that the airline's claim of sending a notification a few days before the flight was not proven to have reached the plaintiffs.
The court criticized the airline's conduct, stating:
"It is not enough to merely claim that a message was sent. If the layover was indeed part of the route from the beginning, this actually strengthens the airline's obligation to ensure that this material detail appears in the documents delivered to the passengers."
The judge ruled that failing to disclose such a critical fact, which prevents Israeli passengers from utilizing the flight, constitutes a fundamental breach of the duty of good faith and disclosure imposed on a flight operator.
Regarding Kishrey Teufa, the court found that while a travel agent is not merely a "conduit" and carries professional duties, in this case, it was not proven that the agency actually knew of the stop in Bangladesh or received a concrete update from the airline. The claim against the agency was therefore dismissed.
The court also rejected the airline's argument that the Aviation Services Law did not apply because the flight itself departed. The judge ruled that from the passengers' perspective, the ability to realize the carriage contract was prevented due to an undisclosed route, meaning the flight must be treated as canceled under the law. The airline was ordered to pay a total of approximately NIS 11,500, including expenses.
